I get it. The ever increasing reliance on addons has been a major strain on game development. New players tune into live streams and videos to see if WoW is for them, only to be met with screens absolutely saturated with information overload and no two UIs being remotely the same. Things like DBM straight up telling you what to do is probably not the way players should be navigating higher end encounters.
In general, I think adjusting combat such that we rely considerably less on addons, and implementing in-game alternatives to popular picks, are both excellent concepts.
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater though, particularly with respect to weakauras, feels drastic and really stifles my excitement for Midnight by itself. You just know that Blizzard’s in-game alternative will have infinitely less customizability and room for expression.
I like that my combo points can change color when they’re near or at the cap. I like that the opacity of my dots can change within the pandamic window to inform me when its safe to reapply. Maybe I want some of these things to be visible in battlegrounds, but not other environments.
I just don’t see why it couldn’t coexist alongside Blizzard’s new system. Everything most players need will be right there in the in-game settings, with more comprehensive options being accessible to those of us willing to download a third-party addon and configure it.
Must the goal of reducing addon reliance necessarily entail the crippling/removal of those addons?